80 BLECHNUM BOREALE. 
fronds are dark green. Sometimes a frond is partly 
fertile and partly barren. 
Varieties of this Fern occasionally occur. In one, the 
leafllets are shortened, and assume the form of scollops 
with an irregularly toothed edge. In another variety 
the end of the frond is forked. 
It is easily cultivated if moved from its native place 
early in April, with abundance of soil about the roots, 
so that these are disturbed but little, and if it is 
planted in some well-drained place, as rockwork, where 
it is shaded from much sun, and supplied regularly and 
abundantly with moisture. The soil for it is best com- 
posed of one part peat, one part leaf-mould, and two 
parts stiffish loam well mixed together. We have not 
found it thrive either in a Wardian case or in a green- 
house; but a writer in THE COTTAGJE GARDENER, 
vol. xv., p. 261 , says, " Having grown it to a great 
extent, I can say, confidently, that it will grow, and 
that, too, most luxuriantly, in a greenhouse. I have 
had plants of it in twenty-four sized pots, throw out 
eight-and-thirty fronds, fourteen of which were fertile; 
and it was that, and a fine plant of Scolopendrium, 
undulatum, that attracted the notice of most visitors, 
for they were really noble plants. I have also grown 
each of these very successfully in a stove temperature, 
and also many other hardy Ferns." 
It is found wild in various soils and places in open 
healthy grounds, as well as in moist shady hedges. ' 
It has been found in St. Faith's Newton woods near 
Norwich; at Hainsford in Norfolk; in lanes about 
